Who’s hot and who’s not: Saints ‘box clever’ with Henry Pollock, ‘minnows lighting up’ URC and Geoff Parling ‘turns the air blue’
Northampton's Henry Pollock lit up Tottenham at the weekend but Leicester boss Geoff Parling, right, turned the air blue in Birmingham
It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the weekend.
THEY’RE ON FIRE!
Clever boxing Saints: Having caused a stir on Friday with the revelation that he was jumping into bed with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport, there was a sharp focus at Tottenham the next day on Henry Pollock… and he and his Northampton Saints delivered.
Yes, after a swashbuckling two-try start, the PREM Rugby leaders got dragged into a street fight with Saracens and fell into arrears. However, they still had the resolve to bet the house on their attack delivering the killer blow with time almost up through another young upstart, Archie McParland. There were, of course, some Pollock histrionics but, importantly, his rugby rocked, so his antics could be excused on this occasion unlike a fortnight ago with England at Stade de France.
Minnows rising: There is nothing worse than a tournament producing the same sort of outcomes year after year, but the respective five- and four-match winning runs that the ninth-place Connacht and the fifth-place Lions are on are lighting up the United Rugby Championship run-in. Both teams stuttered at the weekend, producing nervy performances reflective of teams not accustomed to winning week after week.
The Irish province left it late at home against Ospreys, eventually taking advantage of the yellow card shown to the brilliant Jac Morgan to break the stalemate with Matthew Devine’s decisive try. Meanwhile, the Lions trailed at home 18-21 to the Dragons before figuring it all out. These URC minnows are now set to meet on April 25 in Johannesburg in what should be an intriguing clash.
Away day toughies: There was a time not so long ago that Exeter visiting Newcastle and Bath pitching up at Sale were assignments riddled with anxiety. The Chiefs had dropped like a stone in recent years, but their now replenished squad continues to mean business this season. 26 minutes was all that Rob Baxter’s side needed to secure the four-try bonus point in their comfortable plucking of an opposition that supposedly has wings these days with its Red Bull investment.
So consistent are the revived Chiefs, they now have a seven-point cushion in the fourth and final play-off spot ahead of the chasers with six games remaining. In contrast to Exeter’s fast start at Kingston Park, defending champions Bath did things differently in Manchester as their much-changed XV was 12 points down at the break against an opposition that have forgotten how to win in this season’s PREM. Whatever was said at the interval produced a sharp two-try response and the winning comeback was then completed by two subs getting on the scoresheet to seal a five-point away win worth its weight in gold.
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Harlequins’ ambush: It has been a strange week at the London strugglers. There was media bemusement that a worldwide search for a new head coach had resulted in them ultimately appointing their defence coach, Jason Gilmore, despite a horrible PREM run where six successive losses had rendered them also-rans without a win since October 25. Whatever about the public reaction to Gilmore’s appointment, what unfolded on Saturday in Cardiff showed the players have the coach’s back as their 18-14 win over Bristol was quite an upset.
They could have blinked when the pressure was at its utmost, with the Bears closing the gap to a single point with a couple of minutes remaining, but Alex Dombrandt’s improved form was rewarded with the penalty-winning breakdown poach to secure a four-point triumph. What a lovely way to see it out and draw a line under their desperate season so far.
PREM Rugby’s popularity: Growing attendances and attracting fans new to the sport is crucial to the health of the club game in England, and Saturday was illustrative of what can be achieved when imaginative marketeers are allowed to do their thing. A combined attendance of nearly 120,000 turned up at Villa Park, Principality and Tottenham to reward the decisions by Gloucester, Bristol and Saracens to move matches to bigger capacity stadiums.
Their success should prompt conversations in Newcastle and Manchester, where the weekend’s other two figures were far less attractive at their regular home grounds. It was March 2019 when Newcastle had more than 27,000 at St James’ Park in a year where the football citadel also hosted the Champions Cup final and an England friendly, suggesting there is a latent appetite for big day out rugby in the area. Sale, though, have yet to take the plunge and move a match to see what impact it can have.
Surprising Waratahs: We lumped the Sydney franchise into last week’s Cold As Ice! section after they blew a 12-point interval lead to lose for the third time in succession in this year’s Super Rugby Pacific. That left them drifting in seventh place on the table and fearing their season could be over by Easter with away matches to come at the Brumbies and the Chiefs.
A sharp response was required and they delivered in Canberra despite being on an eight-match losing streak against the Brumbies. They led 21-7 after half an hour and stayed on task despite the hosts pulling level at 21-all just minutes into the second half. The final result of 30-28 suggests it was very tight, but the Waratahs won this with a bit to spare, Sid Harvey calmly kicking three penalties for a 30-21 advantage until a late Brumbies try. Well played.
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Red-hot Fehi Fineanganofo: We gave a nod to the Hurricanes last weekend for the clinical manner of their destruction of the Highlanders, and we can only keep nodding in approval after they brought it all home to Wellington this weekend to give the Reds a bruising eight-try, 52-14 hammering. Yet again, winger Fineanganofo proved unstoppable, delivering his third hat-trick of the six-game campaign so far – and his second in successive matches.
At that rate, he should be a shoo-in for All Black selection consideration but the 23-year-old, who represented New Zealand at the 2024 Olympics, has already put himself beyond Test honours by signing a two-year deal with Newcastle in January that will kick in later this year. By then, he could well be a Super Rugby title winner as the Hurricanes are looking promising for a second title, 10 years after their first back in 2016.
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Bernard Foley: It was a wounding experience for the Kubota Spears, losing last year’s Japan final 18-13 to the Toyota Brave Lupus, but their response was emphatic at the weekend as a 51-7 demolition in the rematch allowed them to become the third different team to lead the league in as many weeks. The Spears winning at Edoriku Field was nothing new – this latest victory was their 25th in succession at a venue that is definitely a fortress.
What stood out, though, was the ravenous way they set about their visitors in the second half and the identity of the stand-out pulling the strings. Ex-Wallabies international Bernard Foley, the RWC 2015 slayer of England, is now 36 years old, but he demonstrated he definitely still has it with a 19-point contribution that included one of his team’s seven tries.
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Tana Umaga: The first All Blacks skipper of Pasifika heritage, he has suddenly been thrust back into the Test rugby limelight with his appointment by Dave Rennie as an assistant. The former midfielder’s coaching career has been a slow build – just look at the current Super Rugby table where his Moana are currently bottom with Western Force with just one win in seven.
Head coaching might not be his thing, but he has the credentials to make an excellent All Blacks assistant under Rennie’s wing. When it comes to culture and setting the right tone following on from the Scott Robertson era, he should know exactly what is required. How he goes is sure to be watched with interest.
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BROKEN THERMOSTAT!
Laboured Leinster: A 17-point home win is nothing to be sniffed at when you are coming off the back of two URC defeats on the road, but the wait for Leo Cullen’s side to produce a statement win remains ongoing as it took them a while to get the better of an improving Scarlets, who seem to be enjoying life under Nigel Davies and made more carries than their hosts.
Holding onto the ball was an issue for Leinster, as was the penalty count and more consistently nailing their tackles. Minds will certainly be concentrated now that they are heading back into Investec Champions Cup action with Edinburgh visiting next Sunday. They still have plenty to work on.
COLD AS ICE!
Stick to the rugby, Geoff: Leicester boss Parling has never been an operator to grab attention for his media dealings. Dull is how he usually comes across when it comes to having his say, so it was curious how the mask so suddenly slipped last Saturday on live TV, pushing TNT Sport presenter Craig Doyle off the Villa Park pitch after a ball was kicked towards the posts where the Tigers were warming up. That he didn’t believe there was anything wrong in what he did, needlessly putting his hand on someone and turning the air blue, was highlighted in the length of time it took for him to make an apology via the club.
Sunday morning was too late, illustrating how he is a coach who operates in a bubble and was oblivious that TV contributes to his wages, and he needs to conduct himself better with them. Yes, TNT shouldn’t have launched a ball at that particular time, but Parling’s response was quite an overreaction. He wasn’t alone in losing the rag at the weekend, though, as Cornish Pirates coach Alan Paver was red-carded for an altercation with a Worcester player. Must do better, lads.
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Munster: The Irish province have received kudos for coming away from the Bulls with two points at the weekend – a losing bonus for only getting by three points and also a try bonus point. They were valuable as it kept them in seventh spot in the URC, still in the play-off places and, most importantly, still with a grip on qualification for next season’s Champions Cup. That’s a hold they can’t relinquish. Off the back of a damaging 0-45 drubbing at the Sharks, it was quite the blow for the club to announce the need for redundancies to better balance their books.
It’s not the first time they have cut their cloth – even when they were a more consistent team pulling bigger crowds in at the turnstiles in 2013, there were some redundancies. However, the pressure to stay in the top eight is now immense. As encouraging as the two bonus points were in Pretoria with Jack Crowley back involved, the bottom line is that it was a sixth loss in their last nine league outings in a season where they are rerouted to the Challenge Cup next weekend after Champions Cup elimination.
Bristol: We spoke last week on the back of their loss at Leicester about how the Bears aren’t getting enough bang for their buck with Pat Lam at the helm. The 2016 PRO12 winner with Connacht has been at the English club for quite some time, but they repeatedly fall short of making the PREM Rugby play-offs and are now in grave danger of doing so again after fluffing their lines on their big day out in Cardiff versus Harlequins.
Being seven points off the fourth and final play-off spot with six matches remaining isn’t where their fans want them to be. While they now have a league break until their April 17 encounter at home to Gloucester, their European trip to Toulouse suggests their interest in that competition is also in jeopardy. For the talent at Lam’s disposal, something repeatedly doesn’t come out in the wash at this time of the year.
Edinburgh: What were the Scottish Rugby Union thinking a few months ago when it decided offering Sean Everitt a contract extension through the summer of 2028 was the best option to take the club forward? That news certainly hasn’t generated an on-field bounce in their already troubling results. Saturday’s loss at the Stormers was their third on the bounce in the URC, and they are now languishing in 13th place, 17th points behind the Bulls in the eighth and final play-off spot.
There was a first-half pulse in Cape Town after the horror of Johannesburg, but the club’s overall lack of competitiveness has been shocking, and they are a million miles behind country rivals Glasgow. In a two-club system, this width of the gap is alarming and no grounds for the coach to be given a fresh deal. Even the European win over Toulon shortly before that deal was inked hasn’t aged well, as the French club’s form has imploded so it wasn’t the massive victory it was made out to be at the time.
Saracens: Similar to Munster, the London club exhibited plenty of fight on Saturday following a humiliating defeat the previous weekend, but the bottom line was that they didn’t get the job done and their loss to Northampton was damaging. Twelve points behind Exeter in the fourth and final play-off spot, they are running out of road to try and fix up all parts of their game. For them to miss out on the semi-finals for the second successive year would be quite the headline.
Winning just five times in 12 PREM outings definitely is not something Saracens are used to. While there were some individual performances to gladden the heart, namely the efforts of Maro Itoje, Rhys Carre and Tobias Elliott, more of their teammates need to find their best form if they are to make a battle of the end-of-season run-in. It is apt that their next league fixture on April 19 will be at Sale, a struggling side with a Saracens-like style.
Gloucester: To say George Skivington was filthy in the aftermath of his team’s latest PREM Rugby outing would be an understatement. He wasn’t in the least bit hesitant post-game towards putting the boot into his side, stating there would be plenty axed if there was a game next weekend, which there isn’t as their frustrating form over the winter included their elimination from that tournament.
You have to now wonder if the likable boss is still their best man for the long road. He has been in charge since the summer of 2020. Last season’s fifth-place finish in the league (they were just two points shy of fourth) showed promise after finishing ninth in 2024. However, two wins in 12 this term is a brutal fall-off and will have the powers-that-be considering that a change at the top is the best decision.
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Zebre’s red: We don’t see straight reds much these days in rugby with the officials now in the habit of ducking responsibility, going for a yellow card and inviting the foul play bunker to finish off the job and upgrade the sanction. It was refreshing then to see referee Craig Evans brandish the full red card for the 28th-minute gouging incident in Parma where Simone Gesi’s attempted hand-off of Stuart McCloskey went badly wrong.
The contact wasn’t as brutal as the recent incidents involving Oscar Jegou and Eben Etzebeth, but messing with the eye area is simply a no-go and cannot be tolerated. Evans could have coped out and given a lesser punishment, but he was efficient in what he did.
WRU quitter: If Richard Collier-Keywood truly believes that the reset proposed by his WRU, which includes the end of the Ospreys, he would surely stick to his guns and seek a second term as chair in July. However, ahead of the EGM, where he will face a vote of no confidence on April 13, he has opted to confirm he will be stepping down in a couple of months.
It’s a bad look, one of the prime movers in the controversial plan for Wales to no longer have four regional teams stepping back before the EGM. That suggests the ice on which the plan has been constructed is on very thin ice at this stage, and it could soon well be shelved given the momentum that is now behind the Ospreys and the Welsh rugby grassroots.
Williams and Williams: It’s been a week to forget for New Zealand prop Tamaiti and former Wales back Liam. Crusaders have confirmed that the Kiwi front-rower has been ruled out of the remainder of their Super Rugby campaign with a serious spinal infection affecting a disc, creating uncertainty about his availability when new boss Rennie gets to work with the All Blacks.
At least he can look forward to a comeback at some stage, something that is beyond Williams’ Welsh namesake, who has announced his retirement from playing. There were great hopes that his signing by Newcastle offered the chance for a career lifeline, but injuries curtailed the 34-year-old’s involvement and he has now called it quits. That’s a shame as he was one of the game’s best and much admired for his style of play.
